8/15/16

By emulating the way the human brain works researchers hope to build faster, more efficient computer chips.

IBM created a computer chip that works like a brain. Now, Samsung has used it to create a biologically inspired digital eye.

The IBM chip, called TrueNorth, is built of 4,096 tiny computing cores that form about a million digital brain cells and 256 million connections. Together they act like the brain's neurons, sending short messages to one another to process data.

The design, known as neuromorphic computing, marks a dramatic departure from traditional chips that run software packaged into strict sequences of instructions. Neuromorphic chips are also optimized to get large amounts of processing done without consuming as much power as traditional chips.